KIDS EMBRACE DOPE, BOOZE

Marijuana 'Cheaper Than Cigarettes'

More Canadian high school kids are smoking up and getting wasted,
shows a new federal study to be released next month.

The Trends in the Health of Canadian Youth study, done by Health
Canada, surveyed 12,000 Canadian students in Grades 6, 8 and 10 last
year.

Canada ranked third among 11 countries in the number of 15-year-olds
who had gotten "really drunk" twice or more in 1998, five spots ahead
of even the U.S.

Some 43% of boys and girls said they were really drunk two or more
times last year, compared to 34% of boys and 28% of girls in the U.S.
In 1994, just 39% of Canadian 15-year-olds said they had been
over-intoxicated twice or more.

The findings "I'm sure will not come as a shock to any teachers. It
will verify their anecdotal evidence," said Joe Atkinson, deputy
registrar at Ontario's College of Teachers, which published an
overview of the survey in its quarterly journal this week.

The survey found the use of pot, hash, cocaine, amphetamines and LSD
also rising.

Among Grade 10 students some 44% of boys and 41% of girls had used
marijuana three or more times, an increase from 30% and 27% in 1994
and 26% and 24% in "I talked to my own kids about that and what
they're saying is marijuana is very available, it's available in
intermediate schools and it's available even more cheaply than
cigarettes," said Mary Johnston, the project's manager at Health Canada.

Students who got into risky health behaviour also tended to skip
classes, the study found. Even as early as Grade 6, 29% of boys and
25% of girls had skipped classes. A third of 13-year-old boys spent
five or more evenings a week out with their friends.

Kids who had positive attitudes toward school tended to have good
relationships with their parents and stayed away from drugs and booze,
the survey found.